


Drowning

by IcyEarth (NovisMusica)



Series: The Author Projects Onto Podcast Characters [2]
Category: Antecedently (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Noah projects hours, Overdosing, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovisMusica/pseuds/IcyEarth
Summary: Hey man I love you, but no fucking way
Relationships: Fish (Antecedently) & Lorrie (Antecedently), Lorrie (Antecedently) & Original Charecter
Series: The Author Projects Onto Podcast Characters [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001442





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Be kind? Vent fic in the truest form. Surprisingly, not that much of a self insert.

_ This is for the lions living in the wiry broke down frames _

_ Of my friends bodies _

The first time Lorrie overdoses he’s thirteen in my living room and I don’t even notice at first. It takes ten minutes for me to register that he's barely breathing. It takes another ten for me to care. I don’t call an ambulance, who the fuck can afford that, not with how much his mom would freak out if they saw the scars all over him. Can’t have that.

So I dump a glass of cold water on him, I throw a middle finger to the ceiling, and when he wakes up I pretend nothing happened even though my best friend just almost died on the floor in front of me. He believes everything I tell him.

_ When the flood water comes, it ain't gonna be clear _

_ It's gonna look like mud _

Lorrie has new scars on his wrists and a new streak in it’s hair and he’s kneeling in front of my toilet throwing up. I tell him he needs to call his dad, he’s worried sick and hasn’t gone a day without calling our landline since Lorrie disappeared.

Lorrie mumbles an

“If he actually cared he’d be here and not married to a trophy wife in Texas.”

I wish I could argue with him but I can’t, so I make macaroni and put on golden girls and I tell him to not do it again. It’s pointless, but I need to say it.

_ But I will help you swim _

_ I will help you swim _

_ I'm gonna help you swim _

I walk Lorrie to the youth mental health services building, even if it’s only a few blocks away. It tries to walk away on me like five times, but I just keep grabbing the back of his (my) jacket. Even if they can’t make him better, maybe they can give him some answers. I walk it back to my house, too. He won’t tell me what they told him but I think we both already knew.

_ This is for the snakes and the people they bite _

_ For the friends I've made, for the sleepless nights _

I try to bring a girl home to find Lorrie passed out in my bed. I let her take the couch while I try to wake Lorrie up.

This time, I call the ambulance. I don’t expect the random seventeen year old to stay, but she comes all the way to the hospital with me. They tell me their name is Fish and she/her is fine but they/them is too, and are they okay? An overdose? I’m coming with you, let me get my bag, don’t apologize, hey, it’ll be alright.

_ For the warning signs I've completely ignored _

_ There's an amount to take, reasons to take more _

Lorrie’s mom never shows up to the hospital, and my dad won’t foot the bill, of course. Fish doesn’t really have a solution but she stays. She met me last night and they don’t even know what colour Lorrie’s eyes are, but she stays. I decide they're a good kid. I decide I can’t forgive Lorrie for this one. I leave him in a hospital bed with a kid he’s never met, and I drink myself to sleep. I don’t think about him. I swear I’m not thinking about him.

_ It's no big surprise you turned out this way _

_ When they close their eyes and prayed you would change _

I shouldn’t even be surprised it came to this. Dad left when Lorrie was five for a woman that didn’t hate him in Texas. Left his son that acted more like a daughter behind, took the other two with him. Only thing he’d ever really done for Lorrie was leave that incredibly short-lived bottle of nice vodka in the liquor cabinet. His mom didn’t care about him, she didn’t care about much at all. The only time she really acknowledged it was to call him slurs.

_ And they cut your hair, and sent you away _

_ You stopped by my house the night you escaped _

_ With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay _

_ You said, "Hey man, I love you, but no fucking way!" _

He shows up on my doorstep a week and a half later, looking better than I’ve ever seen him.

“I’m moving in with Fish, an apartment across town. I can’t stay here. I have to get clean.” Lorrie is leaving me alone. Fuck. Guess this is what I get, for leaving it.

“Stay, Lorrie. I’ll help you sober up. I promise.”

I think we both know what he said next.

_ I'm sure that we could find something for you to do on stage _

_ Maybe shake a tambourine or when I sing, you sing harmonies _

Lorrie never graduates but it doesn’t need to. I never graduated but I needed to. I start a band, it flops, I do harder drugs, I wonder how I ever thought Lorrie was the one with the big drug problem and not me. My medical debt gets bigger, I’m still jobless. I miss him.

_ This is for the lake that me and my friends swim in _

_ Naked and dumb on a drunken night _

I think about Lorrie and I’s childhood friend drowning. I think about her tiny ten year old body slipping underwater. I think about the bubbles that were her last screams. I don’t know if it’s a memory or a nightmare or both. I don’t even know if I’m asleep, but her face becomes Fish’s becomes my mother’s becomes Lorrie’s, so I think I’m sleeping. I hope I’m sleeping because if I’m not, I’m probably dead.

_ But it should've felt good, but I can hear the Jaws theme song _

_ On repeat in the back of my mind _

I promised I’d help Lorrie swim so I never had to watch another person drown, but I’m the one drowning.

_ Make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face _

_ There are lessons to be learned _

_ Consequences for all the stupid things I say _

It mirrors what’s happened before, I’m on Lorrie’s doorstep, a cute apartment in the firmly middle class part of town, it has a red door and four pairs of shoes on the matt. When Lorrie open the door, I punch him. Not hard.

“You left me there.”

It just hugs me.

_ And it is no big surprise you turned out this way _

_ The spark in your eyes, the look on your face _

_ I will not be late _

I can’t stay with them but the little family gets me hooked up in a residential hotel and they bring me food, make sure I get to my appointments, get me a phone. Fish is married. 

I think Lorrie still loves me.

I don’t know if he does or if I just want it to.

_ I'm sure that we could find something for you to do on stage _

_ Maybe shake a tambourine or when I sing, you sing harmonies _

And maybe I love him. I don’t really want to think about it, if I’m honest. Maybe I always did and maybe I don’t.

_ I wanna contribute to the chaos _

_ I don't wanna watch and then complain _

_ 'Cause I am through finding blame _

_ That is the decision that I have made _

I don’t think it matters.

_ She hopes I'm cursed forever to _

_ Sleep on a twin-sized mattress _

_ In somebody's attic or basement my whole life _

_ Never graduating up in size to add another _

Lorrie is too much his mother but I’m too much my father and I hope that one day I can kill them both so we can be free from it.

_ And my nightmares will have nightmares every night _

_ Oh, every night, every night _

I can’t follow through though. I’ll always have the knife poised over my hatred and I can never deliver that last blow.


End file.
